RelativeLayout is taking fullscreen for wrap_content

Question

Why does FOOBARZ get layed out all the way at the bottom when no elements are layout_height=\"fill_parent\" in other words, all elements are wrap_content for he

Answer 1

From the RelativeLayout doc:

Class Overview

A Layout where the positions of the children can be described in relation to each other or to the parent.

Note that you cannot have a circular dependency between the size of the RelativeLayout and the position of its children. For example, you cannot have a RelativeLayout whose height is set to WRAP_CONTENT and a child set to ALIGN_PARENT_BOTTOM

Class documentation

Which is exactly your case. RelativeLayout can not do that.